Encounterlogs
Lydias Odd Encounter Sr Winston 241105
In the pulsating heart of The Succubus Club during an unseasonably cold evening, Lydia finds herself lost in the rhythm of a heated ballad morphed into a fiery dance track. Amidst the anonymity of the dance floor, a peculiar man in his mid-forties, exuding an unnatural grace, approaches Lydia with an offer of a drink. With a reckless abandon characteristic of Lydia, she accepts, stepping into a dance that blurs into a haze of intoxication and eventually, into a complete blackout. When consciousness returns, it brings her to a chilling wakefulness on a stone outcropping near the Bay, surrounded by men who reveal themselves to be shark-like mermen from beyond, explaining their need to feed on her warmth and vibrancy to sustain their existence in this world.
Lydia, finding herself on the precipice of a grim fate, clings to her wit in a desperate bid for survival. Through a cunning invocation of a supposed connection with the Fae, she stirs the predatory beings' reluctance to cross into the territory of such powerful entities. This calculated gambit grants her a tenuous reprieve as the leader of the aquatic creatures commands her to direct them to an alternative source of sustenance, sparing her life for the assistance. Despite the superficial compliance, Lydia's guidance is a ploy, steering the creatures away from herself and towards the unknown. Her survival, secured through a blend of luck and deceit, leaves her wounded but alive, painfully making her way back to the safety of the town, a testament to her resilience and ingenuity in the face of a nightmarish ordeal.
(Lydia's odd encounter(SRWinston):SRWinston)
[Sun Nov 3 2024]
In the Main Dance Floor of The Succubus Club
The wide open space of dance floor takes up most of this open portion of
the club, warehouse ceilings high and fixed with a multitude of appropriate
strobing and colorful lights. Lounge furniture is spaced along the outer
walls to watch the dance floor and provide a place for seating and drinks as
the thrum of high energy dance music and trap remixes of popular songs
pulses from the speakers. Waitresses in skimpy attire move between the
seating and throngs of people to take and deliver drink orders on site, and
the rounded double stairs converge together on a sky balcony to look over
the floor below.
A hallway leads to vending and bathrooms, as well as a steady stream of
people who seem to be getting club drugs from one source or another in that
direction. The front bar is partially partitioned behind the dance floor
near the entrance, a more suitable place for conversational drinks as the
music allows for limited version in the main club.
It is afternoon, about 51F(10C) degrees, and the sky is partly covered by dark grey clouds.
(Your target is abducted by a sea creature that's somehow crossed over into our world, it is up to them to survive for long enough that their allies can come help.
)
A paltry fifty-one degrees and nowhere near sunset on a Sunday night, and Lydia's at work, but she sure as hell isn't working. The crowd, as always, thrums and pumps, the Succubus Club always busy, never empty and nothing anyone does can ever slow it down. This late in the weekend, the DJ's got a few different flavors on the tables, going slow and heated to help everyone wind down from a weekend-rager and Daylight Savings. A sultry, heated ballad backed by a good, mambo bass line is twisted and manipulated by expert hands into something stilted and pumping, enough to give a rhythm, enough to give it -fire-.
Surrounded on all sides by bodies and energy without face, without name, hands roam across Lydia's body in wild abandon, twisting and twirling, shifting between the lead, and the follow. The lights are low, the music's loud, the beat is hot and -ready-. Somewhere amidst it all, a handsome man in his mid-forties approaches Lydia, moving with a preternatural grace, and holding twin, matching glasses. Sweat beads at his brow and the lights glint off the silver threading in his suit, as he comes up to her, clearing the way with a brush of his elbow to hold one glass out to her, the amber liquid inside sloshing enticingly. "Hey there!" He calls over the music, "You're -really- working it up. Want a drink?"
Lydia is throwing herself into the dance tonight, almost as if fulfulling some deep imperative, to have fun whatever the cost. She sways and twists, dancing with remarkable grace, and never complaining when some other body crosses into her personal space, or some hand drifts too firmly across her body. She hasn't drunk any alcohol yet, and stil lthere is a faintly intoxicated look in her eyes as she grins to the rhythm of the music. As the man comes up to her, she stares up at his glasses, giving him a slow little grin. "Thanks, handsome!" she calls out, reaching out to take the glass and takes a slow sip. She never was the careful type.
"My pleasure!" comes a warm and welcome voice, as Lydia takes the glass from the man's hand. He lifts his own, static amidst the chaos, as a cheers to Lydia, before downing what seems to be straight, pure whiskey in one shot. A waitress passes by, and the man drops his glass onto her tray, before stepping in to take Lydia up in a tango as the song swells up and then cracks into another one.
One hand wraps around her hip, feet moving fast and skilled, while the other comes to tilt at her glass, as he says "That's good stuff, don't waste a drop!"
Lydia blinsk as she finds herself wrapped in the man's arm. As that hand comes up to press the glass against her, she hesitates for a moment--then gives in to the seduction, drinking down the liquor as it is half-forced into her mouth. She shifts her feet, doing her best to follow his steps, her hand moving to his shoulder while she gasps for breath a little.
And down and down it goes. And where it lands inside of Lydia's gullet first comes the warm bloom of whiskey and it's accompanying bite. And then with it comes a dizziness, and a headiness, and the man takes Lydia into the middle of the dance floor, till the lights get low and the bodies get hot and she's caught in a dance as it all starts to get....hazy. And hazy. And -hazy-. And then.... Dark.
Utter, complete darkness. Not a sound nor sight to stimulate Lydia's senses. Only darkness and sensation. First, thrumming, humming and buzzing, thumping that presses against her shoulders and her back, and then a droning grind that vibrates her entire body, shaking it to and fro. A halt that grinds and scrapes at the back of her skull and then....nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And then COLD. Cold of steel and iron and cold of wet stone and sea spray, as light from the waning sun finally filters into Lydia's eyes and a hand comes to clap, sharply, across Lydia's cheek to wake her up. There is a blade, now, at Lydia's throat, as that same man, still wearing that beautiful, shining suit, smiles a shark's-tooth grin at her, as several other men in similar suits surround her in an arc, on a stone outcropping near the Bay. "Wake up, girl. It's dinner time."
Lydia gasps as the sharp slap wakes her up. She widens her eyes, lurching forward, only to freeze as she feels the blade against her throat. She stares up at the man, eyes wide with fear, hands clenching within their metal restraint. "W-what...?" she slurs softly, her cheeks even paler than usual.
Darkness waxes and sunlight wanes, and the Bay stretches out before Lydia. She is, for the moment, unbound, but she is surrounded on all sides by men that, with each passing moment, look a lot less like men, and a lot more like, well...oddly, mermen. If mermen had sharks as the other half, and were shark-headed, and human-footed. Once the sun sets entirely, and the area is swathed only in starlight, moon light and the ambient glow of the lighthouse off in the distance, several of the men step back into the darkness, while the one holding the knife - the one with the sharp, -sharp- eyes, that had given Lydia the drink, steps forward, and with each step, his silvered suit melds into his skin, the stitching becoming scaling, and his smile going from preternatural, to inhumanly predatory. "It was...an effort, going that far inland, to find someone fitting. Normally, when we hunt, we hunt coasts, peripheries, edges of worlds. But the leylines fluctuated, and we were too far inland to find the sea."
A prick of the knife draws a line of blood beneath Lydia's jaw. "Thankfully, you were remarkably accommodating. If you don't scream, and don't run, we may yet leave you with a few limbs with which to crawl back to town. At least one of them will be a leg," And the man looks pointedly into Lydia's eyes, with a gaze growing sharper, and less human by the moment, "We wouldn't want to make it so you can't dance, after all."
Lydia winces a little as the blade pierces her skin a little. She starts to straighten up, finding her feet under her, as she stares with sick fascination at the creatures before her. "Please..." she whispers, terror rising into her eyes. She takes a few short breaths, glancing around in panic, trying to analyze her chances, her options. "What... do you mean, someone fitting?"
If a shark could suck at their teeth, then this one certainly does. Or it tries to, at least, and the resulting sound is like a wet vacuum trying to suck up an even wetter carpet through a metal grating. None of it is pleasant, not for a moment, and it doesn't really end, because by this point, the man-thing's voice is an unpleasant rasp, a drawl pulled from beyond time or ken, from ages before mankind walked out of the sea, and all life lived in the darkest of depths. Where the shark was the predator and king, and its descendants roamed and fed as they pleased. The blade is held to keep Lydia stable, the other ring of men having all but disappeared save for their eyes in the darkness. "Please? No, there is no please. We are Hungry. We have traveled long, and far, and we will travel no further until we are sated." He grabs hold of Lydia's right arm, tightly, and moves to shove her forward, to the edge of the outcropping.
"You were warm. Deeply so. Warm, and full of life. You will feed us well, enough that we may continue our travels. It is..." And there, -there- for a moment, the shark-man withers, straining to hold onto this half-way form beneath the pressures of Haven's attempts to make him CONFORM. "...Difficult, to exist here, long."
Lydia grimaces as the clammy hand grips at her and pulls her toward the edge. She watches the brief shifting, biting her lip hard as she whispers "I... I don't feel very warm right now. I... don't think you'll find that much sustenance in me..." trying desperately to stall as she tries to judge the shapes in the darkness.
Down and down and down the blade goes, the hand at Lydia's arm keeping her rooted with inhuman strength. It's a curved knife, a variation on a deboning knife used for gutting fish, though its edges are jagged and they catch at Lydia's crop top, cutting it at the fringes. "You're hale," the Other-thing says, its voice guttural and barely comprehensible, at this point. "Full, hearty. You could feed me easily, and my school to boot. And with some still left over. If you cry out, well..." He shrugs, or, rather, writhes, his skin glittering in the starlight, the Lighthouse briefly catching and illuminating his warped, shark-like frame. "Have you ever seen what it is like, when sharks find blood in the water?"
And down the blade goes, till it catches, at Lydia's navel, one of the serrated edges having caught on the barbell through her navel. He tugs, it -hurts-, and his eyes go down to it. "....What the fuck is this thing? Some kind of good-luck charm?" And his other hand releases Lydia's arm, going to pull at the shiny thing pierced through her fles.
Lydia tries not to shiver as the cold, sharp blade glides along her skin. She winces as her piercing gets tugged, almost making her stumble forward. She bites her lip hard, staring up into the being's face. "Probably..." she murmurs softly. "It was made and given to me by a Fae..." she doesn't add any intimations or suggestions, avoiding to get caught in an over elaborate lie, and instead hoping the beings will fill in the story for themselves...
Oh, that's a Word. A very, VERY big Word. The shark-Thing pauses, in its attempts to carve up Lydia like a fish, and devour her. Its blade, however, drops, immediately, at Lydia's explanation. Or, rather, her vague lack of one. It pauses, then, and the entire night goes to a still. In a slithering, aching voice, it leans down to Lydia, seizing her by the hair, and wrenching her head back, insisting "A Fae?" And the very word makes it writhe, and seethe. "What do you know of the Fae? What do the Fae know of you? Answer, and answer -truthfully-, or I will throw you off the rocks, here, and now."
Lydia tries to pull away, but the hand finds her hair, pulling her close. She grimaces a little as she stares back, trying to decide if her gambit is the right one. This is what you get for staying on the edges of the occult world. She takes a deep breath as she replies "I know... very little. But one of them knows me. And considers me his." And at the very least, she does not have to fake truthfulness.
Those such as this Creature do not play nice with the Fae. It narrows its eyes till cross-hatched gold is all that Lydia sees, save for the flashes of teeth in the darkness that could devour her whole, each time it has to enunciate. Again, the blade goes to Lydia's throat, and the water echoes in its crash against the rocks far, far below them. A reminder, so eminently, of how close Lydia is to certain doom. A twitch, a wrong step, the wrong word - or another word along this line - will have her in the drink, and her night of revelry will have been ruined. And that's presuming she survives the fall.
"His?" comes the inquiry, digging the blade up into Lydia's jaw, forcing her to look up into the monstrous and horrible thing, from outside of this world, and this Place, struggling to hold its form, having slipped in through the cracks. "What do you mean, 'His'? What Fae is this that lays claim to a mere human like you?"
Lydia grimaces, bites her lip a as she stares into the horrible face. The only, barest glimmer of hope she can find in this horrid situation is the visible trouble the beings have with staying in this place. And so she takes a shallow little breath, pausing for just long enough to make it seem like it is only the terror freezing her. "I... they have whims. They can get possessive. You know that..."
They know this well. And they have no desire, none at all, to fuck with the claims of the Fae. From Beyond this place these creatures have come, and to it they wish to return, but they need sustenance. Hunger and Hunger alone keeps this Thing rooted, here, on the rock and far from the water, even as Lydia speaks truth and makes it into Lies to ward off a danger far, far greater than her. The blade drops, clattering against the rock, and a wet, webbed hand comes up to wrap around her throat, lifting her off of her feet as if she weighed no more than a pillowcase, pushing her body back into a jagged outcropping. "We also have whims. Tell me one, -true- good reason why I should not devour you and leave your scraps to your Fae? My brood and I hunger."
Lydia gasps as she gets lifted by her throat, her feet kicking wildly in the air, her shoes flying off her feet and landing on the cold, wet rock. She grasps the merman's hand with her own, trying vainly to loose his grip. "...can still find... other food... that comes... at less price..." she chokes out weakly.
"You will help us," it says, leaning down till warm, pungent spittle falls upon Lydia's face. "Point, direct us to where less...pricey Food can be found, and we shall let you go. With a message, of course."
Lydia has no idea where she actually is, but is not about to let that stop her. She lifts her hand, pointing -away- from the sea, presumably toward the town...
Perhaps strained, perhaps too exhausted, or perhaps simply not willing to incur the wrath of the Fae that had claimed Lydia, the Shark-Thing drops her to her feet, leaving her with a parting snarl, and a slash of its hand across her stomach, in some vain attempt to dislodge the 'Gift' the Fae had given her. "COME!" It growls into the darkness, before wandering off.
Lydia screams as she gets slashed across the belly, falling to the ground, grimacing as she hears the beings stalk off. She lets out a sob of pure emotion, shuddering hard, before slowly getting to her feet, trying to find her way back to town, but definitely not in the same exact direction.
And with that, the Shark-Things step out into the darkness, in the direction Lydia had gestured too, straining at the edges of creation and of their existence, to try to find Sustenance, before they falter. And Lydia is left, bleeding, aching, in the darkness, but alive.
Lydia, finding herself on the precipice of a grim fate, clings to her wit in a desperate bid for survival. Through a cunning invocation of a supposed connection with the Fae, she stirs the predatory beings' reluctance to cross into the territory of such powerful entities. This calculated gambit grants her a tenuous reprieve as the leader of the aquatic creatures commands her to direct them to an alternative source of sustenance, sparing her life for the assistance. Despite the superficial compliance, Lydia's guidance is a ploy, steering the creatures away from herself and towards the unknown. Her survival, secured through a blend of luck and deceit, leaves her wounded but alive, painfully making her way back to the safety of the town, a testament to her resilience and ingenuity in the face of a nightmarish ordeal.
(Lydia's odd encounter(SRWinston):SRWinston)
[Sun Nov 3 2024]
In the Main Dance Floor of The Succubus Club
The wide open space of dance floor takes up most of this open portion of
the club, warehouse ceilings high and fixed with a multitude of appropriate
strobing and colorful lights. Lounge furniture is spaced along the outer
walls to watch the dance floor and provide a place for seating and drinks as
the thrum of high energy dance music and trap remixes of popular songs
pulses from the speakers. Waitresses in skimpy attire move between the
seating and throngs of people to take and deliver drink orders on site, and
the rounded double stairs converge together on a sky balcony to look over
the floor below.
A hallway leads to vending and bathrooms, as well as a steady stream of
people who seem to be getting club drugs from one source or another in that
direction. The front bar is partially partitioned behind the dance floor
near the entrance, a more suitable place for conversational drinks as the
music allows for limited version in the main club.
It is afternoon, about 51F(10C) degrees, and the sky is partly covered by dark grey clouds.
(Your target is abducted by a sea creature that's somehow crossed over into our world, it is up to them to survive for long enough that their allies can come help.
)
A paltry fifty-one degrees and nowhere near sunset on a Sunday night, and Lydia's at work, but she sure as hell isn't working. The crowd, as always, thrums and pumps, the Succubus Club always busy, never empty and nothing anyone does can ever slow it down. This late in the weekend, the DJ's got a few different flavors on the tables, going slow and heated to help everyone wind down from a weekend-rager and Daylight Savings. A sultry, heated ballad backed by a good, mambo bass line is twisted and manipulated by expert hands into something stilted and pumping, enough to give a rhythm, enough to give it -fire-.
Surrounded on all sides by bodies and energy without face, without name, hands roam across Lydia's body in wild abandon, twisting and twirling, shifting between the lead, and the follow. The lights are low, the music's loud, the beat is hot and -ready-. Somewhere amidst it all, a handsome man in his mid-forties approaches Lydia, moving with a preternatural grace, and holding twin, matching glasses. Sweat beads at his brow and the lights glint off the silver threading in his suit, as he comes up to her, clearing the way with a brush of his elbow to hold one glass out to her, the amber liquid inside sloshing enticingly. "Hey there!" He calls over the music, "You're -really- working it up. Want a drink?"
Lydia is throwing herself into the dance tonight, almost as if fulfulling some deep imperative, to have fun whatever the cost. She sways and twists, dancing with remarkable grace, and never complaining when some other body crosses into her personal space, or some hand drifts too firmly across her body. She hasn't drunk any alcohol yet, and stil lthere is a faintly intoxicated look in her eyes as she grins to the rhythm of the music. As the man comes up to her, she stares up at his glasses, giving him a slow little grin. "Thanks, handsome!" she calls out, reaching out to take the glass and takes a slow sip. She never was the careful type.
"My pleasure!" comes a warm and welcome voice, as Lydia takes the glass from the man's hand. He lifts his own, static amidst the chaos, as a cheers to Lydia, before downing what seems to be straight, pure whiskey in one shot. A waitress passes by, and the man drops his glass onto her tray, before stepping in to take Lydia up in a tango as the song swells up and then cracks into another one.
One hand wraps around her hip, feet moving fast and skilled, while the other comes to tilt at her glass, as he says "That's good stuff, don't waste a drop!"
Lydia blinsk as she finds herself wrapped in the man's arm. As that hand comes up to press the glass against her, she hesitates for a moment--then gives in to the seduction, drinking down the liquor as it is half-forced into her mouth. She shifts her feet, doing her best to follow his steps, her hand moving to his shoulder while she gasps for breath a little.
And down and down it goes. And where it lands inside of Lydia's gullet first comes the warm bloom of whiskey and it's accompanying bite. And then with it comes a dizziness, and a headiness, and the man takes Lydia into the middle of the dance floor, till the lights get low and the bodies get hot and she's caught in a dance as it all starts to get....hazy. And hazy. And -hazy-. And then.... Dark.
Utter, complete darkness. Not a sound nor sight to stimulate Lydia's senses. Only darkness and sensation. First, thrumming, humming and buzzing, thumping that presses against her shoulders and her back, and then a droning grind that vibrates her entire body, shaking it to and fro. A halt that grinds and scrapes at the back of her skull and then....nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And then COLD. Cold of steel and iron and cold of wet stone and sea spray, as light from the waning sun finally filters into Lydia's eyes and a hand comes to clap, sharply, across Lydia's cheek to wake her up. There is a blade, now, at Lydia's throat, as that same man, still wearing that beautiful, shining suit, smiles a shark's-tooth grin at her, as several other men in similar suits surround her in an arc, on a stone outcropping near the Bay. "Wake up, girl. It's dinner time."
Lydia gasps as the sharp slap wakes her up. She widens her eyes, lurching forward, only to freeze as she feels the blade against her throat. She stares up at the man, eyes wide with fear, hands clenching within their metal restraint. "W-what...?" she slurs softly, her cheeks even paler than usual.
Darkness waxes and sunlight wanes, and the Bay stretches out before Lydia. She is, for the moment, unbound, but she is surrounded on all sides by men that, with each passing moment, look a lot less like men, and a lot more like, well...oddly, mermen. If mermen had sharks as the other half, and were shark-headed, and human-footed. Once the sun sets entirely, and the area is swathed only in starlight, moon light and the ambient glow of the lighthouse off in the distance, several of the men step back into the darkness, while the one holding the knife - the one with the sharp, -sharp- eyes, that had given Lydia the drink, steps forward, and with each step, his silvered suit melds into his skin, the stitching becoming scaling, and his smile going from preternatural, to inhumanly predatory. "It was...an effort, going that far inland, to find someone fitting. Normally, when we hunt, we hunt coasts, peripheries, edges of worlds. But the leylines fluctuated, and we were too far inland to find the sea."
A prick of the knife draws a line of blood beneath Lydia's jaw. "Thankfully, you were remarkably accommodating. If you don't scream, and don't run, we may yet leave you with a few limbs with which to crawl back to town. At least one of them will be a leg," And the man looks pointedly into Lydia's eyes, with a gaze growing sharper, and less human by the moment, "We wouldn't want to make it so you can't dance, after all."
Lydia winces a little as the blade pierces her skin a little. She starts to straighten up, finding her feet under her, as she stares with sick fascination at the creatures before her. "Please..." she whispers, terror rising into her eyes. She takes a few short breaths, glancing around in panic, trying to analyze her chances, her options. "What... do you mean, someone fitting?"
If a shark could suck at their teeth, then this one certainly does. Or it tries to, at least, and the resulting sound is like a wet vacuum trying to suck up an even wetter carpet through a metal grating. None of it is pleasant, not for a moment, and it doesn't really end, because by this point, the man-thing's voice is an unpleasant rasp, a drawl pulled from beyond time or ken, from ages before mankind walked out of the sea, and all life lived in the darkest of depths. Where the shark was the predator and king, and its descendants roamed and fed as they pleased. The blade is held to keep Lydia stable, the other ring of men having all but disappeared save for their eyes in the darkness. "Please? No, there is no please. We are Hungry. We have traveled long, and far, and we will travel no further until we are sated." He grabs hold of Lydia's right arm, tightly, and moves to shove her forward, to the edge of the outcropping.
"You were warm. Deeply so. Warm, and full of life. You will feed us well, enough that we may continue our travels. It is..." And there, -there- for a moment, the shark-man withers, straining to hold onto this half-way form beneath the pressures of Haven's attempts to make him CONFORM. "...Difficult, to exist here, long."
Lydia grimaces as the clammy hand grips at her and pulls her toward the edge. She watches the brief shifting, biting her lip hard as she whispers "I... I don't feel very warm right now. I... don't think you'll find that much sustenance in me..." trying desperately to stall as she tries to judge the shapes in the darkness.
Down and down and down the blade goes, the hand at Lydia's arm keeping her rooted with inhuman strength. It's a curved knife, a variation on a deboning knife used for gutting fish, though its edges are jagged and they catch at Lydia's crop top, cutting it at the fringes. "You're hale," the Other-thing says, its voice guttural and barely comprehensible, at this point. "Full, hearty. You could feed me easily, and my school to boot. And with some still left over. If you cry out, well..." He shrugs, or, rather, writhes, his skin glittering in the starlight, the Lighthouse briefly catching and illuminating his warped, shark-like frame. "Have you ever seen what it is like, when sharks find blood in the water?"
And down the blade goes, till it catches, at Lydia's navel, one of the serrated edges having caught on the barbell through her navel. He tugs, it -hurts-, and his eyes go down to it. "....What the fuck is this thing? Some kind of good-luck charm?" And his other hand releases Lydia's arm, going to pull at the shiny thing pierced through her fles.
Lydia tries not to shiver as the cold, sharp blade glides along her skin. She winces as her piercing gets tugged, almost making her stumble forward. She bites her lip hard, staring up into the being's face. "Probably..." she murmurs softly. "It was made and given to me by a Fae..." she doesn't add any intimations or suggestions, avoiding to get caught in an over elaborate lie, and instead hoping the beings will fill in the story for themselves...
Oh, that's a Word. A very, VERY big Word. The shark-Thing pauses, in its attempts to carve up Lydia like a fish, and devour her. Its blade, however, drops, immediately, at Lydia's explanation. Or, rather, her vague lack of one. It pauses, then, and the entire night goes to a still. In a slithering, aching voice, it leans down to Lydia, seizing her by the hair, and wrenching her head back, insisting "A Fae?" And the very word makes it writhe, and seethe. "What do you know of the Fae? What do the Fae know of you? Answer, and answer -truthfully-, or I will throw you off the rocks, here, and now."
Lydia tries to pull away, but the hand finds her hair, pulling her close. She grimaces a little as she stares back, trying to decide if her gambit is the right one. This is what you get for staying on the edges of the occult world. She takes a deep breath as she replies "I know... very little. But one of them knows me. And considers me his." And at the very least, she does not have to fake truthfulness.
Those such as this Creature do not play nice with the Fae. It narrows its eyes till cross-hatched gold is all that Lydia sees, save for the flashes of teeth in the darkness that could devour her whole, each time it has to enunciate. Again, the blade goes to Lydia's throat, and the water echoes in its crash against the rocks far, far below them. A reminder, so eminently, of how close Lydia is to certain doom. A twitch, a wrong step, the wrong word - or another word along this line - will have her in the drink, and her night of revelry will have been ruined. And that's presuming she survives the fall.
"His?" comes the inquiry, digging the blade up into Lydia's jaw, forcing her to look up into the monstrous and horrible thing, from outside of this world, and this Place, struggling to hold its form, having slipped in through the cracks. "What do you mean, 'His'? What Fae is this that lays claim to a mere human like you?"
Lydia grimaces, bites her lip a as she stares into the horrible face. The only, barest glimmer of hope she can find in this horrid situation is the visible trouble the beings have with staying in this place. And so she takes a shallow little breath, pausing for just long enough to make it seem like it is only the terror freezing her. "I... they have whims. They can get possessive. You know that..."
They know this well. And they have no desire, none at all, to fuck with the claims of the Fae. From Beyond this place these creatures have come, and to it they wish to return, but they need sustenance. Hunger and Hunger alone keeps this Thing rooted, here, on the rock and far from the water, even as Lydia speaks truth and makes it into Lies to ward off a danger far, far greater than her. The blade drops, clattering against the rock, and a wet, webbed hand comes up to wrap around her throat, lifting her off of her feet as if she weighed no more than a pillowcase, pushing her body back into a jagged outcropping. "We also have whims. Tell me one, -true- good reason why I should not devour you and leave your scraps to your Fae? My brood and I hunger."
Lydia gasps as she gets lifted by her throat, her feet kicking wildly in the air, her shoes flying off her feet and landing on the cold, wet rock. She grasps the merman's hand with her own, trying vainly to loose his grip. "...can still find... other food... that comes... at less price..." she chokes out weakly.
"You will help us," it says, leaning down till warm, pungent spittle falls upon Lydia's face. "Point, direct us to where less...pricey Food can be found, and we shall let you go. With a message, of course."
Lydia has no idea where she actually is, but is not about to let that stop her. She lifts her hand, pointing -away- from the sea, presumably toward the town...
Perhaps strained, perhaps too exhausted, or perhaps simply not willing to incur the wrath of the Fae that had claimed Lydia, the Shark-Thing drops her to her feet, leaving her with a parting snarl, and a slash of its hand across her stomach, in some vain attempt to dislodge the 'Gift' the Fae had given her. "COME!" It growls into the darkness, before wandering off.
Lydia screams as she gets slashed across the belly, falling to the ground, grimacing as she hears the beings stalk off. She lets out a sob of pure emotion, shuddering hard, before slowly getting to her feet, trying to find her way back to town, but definitely not in the same exact direction.
And with that, the Shark-Things step out into the darkness, in the direction Lydia had gestured too, straining at the edges of creation and of their existence, to try to find Sustenance, before they falter. And Lydia is left, bleeding, aching, in the darkness, but alive.